Atlantic red snapper season opens off Florida coast

The recreational season opens Friday and runs through Sunday. The commercial season opens Monday and runs until the catch limit is met.

By Dinah Voyles Pulverdinah.pulver@news-jrnl.com

Captain Paul Nelson loaded baitfish and ice into his boat for a fishing trip on Wednesday, but like many local fishermen he's already looking forward to the red snapper season that starts Friday. “Looks like the weather's going to hold. It should be good,” Nelson said. “It's going to be a busy weekend, with a lot of snapper caught.” The recreational season opens Friday and runs through Sunday. The commercial season opens Monday and runs until the catch limit is met. Nelson plans to take out a private boat on Saturday, then start Monday on the commercial season, delivering his catch to King's Seafood, a seafood dealership in Port Orange. Both commercial and recreational fishermen hope the brief season will soon become longer, while state and federal officials hope participating anglers will help them gather the information that could be crucial to efforts to determine whether longer red snapper seasons could be re-established.Fisherman all along the southeastern Atlantic coast have been unhappy with previous federal snapper assessments, which triggered a 2010 moratorium on snapper fishing in the region by indicating snapper were being overfished.While federal scientists defend their studies, saying they were done with the best available science, fishermen have insisted the studies were based on flawed science. This season researchers and volunteers with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission will fan out along Florida's east coast each day, collecting samples and interviewing boaters at ramps and marinas as they return from their fishing trips, said Beverly Sauls, an associate research scientist with the wildlife commission. During two three-day weekends last year, state biologists took samples from more than 2,000 red snapper. The survey responses and samples help researchers determine the age structure of snapper populations and determine the catch effort by private and charter boats. The biologists will use a specialized survey “to make sure we get accurate estimates of the season,” Sauls said. The information also could be used for a regional population assessment scheduled to begin next year and be completed in 2015. Fishermen hope the assessment will lead to a reopening of snapper season in the Atlantic off the coast of Florida. Nelson is encouraged by the results of a red snapper assessment recently completed by state scientists. “It's good news,” Nelson said this week. “It's real science.” While this weekend's federal season in waters three miles offshore includes no size limit and a bag limit of one fish per person per day, state officials reminded anglers that in Florida state waters the limit is 20-inches total minimum size, in addition to the bag limit of two fish per person per day. That means “vessels with red snapper smaller than the state's minimum size limit must travel through state waters without stopping and have fishing gear stowed,” the wildlife commission stated in its news release. Anyone who catches a tagged red snapper is asked to report it to the tag return hot line at 800-367-4461, indicating the species, tag number, date and time of capture, catch location, fish length, type of bait used and whether the fish was kept or released. If the fish is released, they ask that the tag be left in place. For more information about the sampling efforts, visit MyFWC.com /Research.

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